Thread by @mcpli

If folks are thinking about resolutions for 2021, I have one to offer: Get to know Asia better - because we’re coming up on a point in history when Asia and its peoples will increasingly no longer be at the periphery but a central protagonist in what comes next. 1/

Yet Asia is a region that most Americans and westerners in general understand only shallowly, if at all. We don’t read about it, don’t travel there (the beaches of Thailand don’t count), think about or study its languages or culture, or follow its news. 2/

And when we do think about it, it is more often than not through simplistic & outdated frames and racist tropes.

When confronted with evidence of Asia’s growing prominence, our reaction so often is an unproductive fear, often verging on paranoia. 3/

Yet whether we like it or not, Asia will increasingly be a driver of the world’s economy, its geopolitics, its fashions, trends, etc. 4/

And as we saw this year, there is a lot we could learn from places like Taiwan, South Korea, and Singapore about smart, effective government. 5/

Sticking our heads in the sand or being incurious won’t help us engage successfully with the world we will have to live in - one that, for the first time since the start of the Industrial Revolution over 250 years ago, increasingly will not be western-centric. 6/

To understand the world to come, we need to better understand the complexities and nuances of this gigantic region. It’s way too basic, for example, to think of China simply as a Communist country or another Soviet Union. That common view misses so much - to our peril. 7/

I mean it’s amazing how much of the discussion in the West of China and Chinese motives fails to take even cursory account of Chinese historical frames - which have much to do with how Chinese, both powerful and ordinary, interpret and understand the world. 8/

Which, to be clear, doesn’t mean that interpretation is right. But it *is* something helpful to understand - especially when it’s coming from a geopolitical rival that soon will be the world’s largest economy. 9/

And note: Thinking about Asia will help our domestic thinking as well. In talking about domestic matters - be it race, healthcare, education, the economy, you name it- we Americans often take our historic primacy as a given. 10/

Better understanding how the world is shifting around us in big, unprecedented ways - and the magnitude of the challenges we face - will help us have better conversations on race, inequality, and a whole host of issues. 11/

So read about Asia (fiction & non-fiction), travel (when it’s possible to do so again), watch movies. Get to know an increasingly rich and geopolitically and economically important region, where almost half the world’s population lives. 12/

I’ll add that one big benefit of paying more attention to Asia is simply realizing how fast it is changing - not only economically but socially and culturally. Even among pretty savvy people, perceptions are often a decade or more out of date. 13/